Connecting two continents underwater by cable marked the beginning of a new age. It was a story of near superhuman effort, daring and innovation. It was the vision of one man, who overcame adversity as he experienced the adventure of his life. The laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable was a project full of fame and ambition, of defeat and ruin.
The year was 1857. A young New Yorker by the name of Cyrus Field had retreated from business life at the age of 30. He had already earned a fortune with his paper company. Now, he wanted to travel and enjoy the good things in life. Instead, his future took a different turn. An English engineer talked him into joining a very ambitious project: a telegraph line between Newfoundland and New York to speed up the exchange of news from Europe to America's business capital. Field agreed and came up with an even bolder plan: why not run the cable all the way across the Atlantic!
A new age was dawning: steam ships, the railroad and the telegraph were all making the world smaller, but Europe and America were still more than a week's journey apart. To manufacture a cable of such immense length and then to stretch it along the seabed of the stormy North Atlantic was a challenge of shear awesome dimensions. Cyrus Field would end up spending 12 years of his life obsessed with this dream. Again and again, he drummed up enormous infusions of capital to finance his plan, he lobbied the English and American governments to support the project and convinced renowned scientists of his day - such as Morse, Faraday and Kelvin - to join the endeavor.
Western Union, however, a major American telegraph company, was developing its own plan to connect Europe and America and thus became a rival of the ambitious Cyrus Field and his New York-London Telegraph Company.
Field was confronted with repeated setbacks. On one occasion, ferocious seas tore the cable from a ship; another time, engineers ruined the line; and then the American Civil War stopped the project altogether. But on a spring day in 1866, the world's largest ship, Great Eastern, could be found anchored off the coast of Ireland. In its hold, some 8,000 tons of cable. It is Field's last chance. He had mortgaged his entire fortune.
The laying of the first transatlantic cable is one of the most exciting and dramatic stories in science. Ever since, the world has been 'wired'. The story unfolds before your eyes and Axel Engstfeld's camera. Today, a network of ocean cable connects the continents. Optic fiber cable allows 100 million telephone conversations simultaneously. But it would all have been unthinkable had it not been for the enterprising zeal, determination and innovative energy of Cyrus Field and his 'Victorian Internet'.
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